Bob Woodward on why Obama chose Hagel

1/28/13 10:05 AM EST

The Washington Post's Bob Woodward asserts that the reason President Obama picked Chuck Hagel as his new defense secretary is their shared vision of a scaled back military and redefined role for the United States in a new world order.

Woodward reports that when Hagel visited Obama in 2009, the new president asked him what he thought about foreign policy and defense:

According to an account that Hagel later gave, and is reported here for the first time, he told Obama: “We are at a time where there is a new world order. We don’t control it. You must question everything, every assumption, everything they” — the military and diplomats — “tell you. Any assumption 10 years old is out of date. You need to question our role. You need to question the military. You need to question what are we using the military for.

“Afghanistan will be defining for your presidency in the first term,” Hagel also said, according to his own account, “perhaps even for a second term.” The key was not to get “bogged down.”

Obama did not say much but listened. At the time, Hagel considered Obama a “loner,” inclined to keep a distance and his own counsel. But Hagel’s comments help explain why Obama nominated his former Senate colleague to be his next secretary of defense.